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By Fait Accompli, Not Coercion:

How States Wrest Territory from Their Adversaries

Dan Altman

Assistant Professor

Georgia State University

Forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Noel Anderson, Mark Bell, Andrew Bertoli, Christopher Clary, Lynn Eden,

James Fearon, Jeffrey Friedman, Taylor Fravel, Phil Haun, Nicholas Miller, Vipin Narang,

Kenneth Oye, Barry Posen, Scott Sagan, Kenneth Schultz, the editors, and four anonymous

reviewers for their comments and insights.

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In February 2014, Russia decided to wrest the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Moscow could

have threatened to attack Ukraine if Kiev failed to relinquish Crimea. However, Russia did not

attempt coercion. Russia unilaterally occupied and annexed the territory, gambling that it could

take Crimea without provoking war. This alternative strategy – the fait accompli – receives far

less scholarly attention. At issue is a fundamental question of statecraft in international politics:

How do states make gains? By coercion or by fait accompli? Territorial acquisitions offer the

best single-issue domain within which to address this question. Using new data on all ‘land

grabs’ since 1918, this research note documents a stark discrepancy. From 1918 to 2016, 112

land grabs seized territory by fait accompli. In that same span, only 13 publicly-declared

coercive threats elicited cessions of territory. This fact suggests that the fait accompli deserves a

larger role in the field’s thinking about strategy and statecraft on the brink of war. It carries with

it important implications for canonical theories of war that rely on assumptions about coercive

bargaining during crises.

In February 2014, Russia decided to wrest the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Moscow

could have threatened to attack Ukraine if Kiev failed to relinquish Crimea. Moscow could even

have consulted an impressive body of international-relations research on credible threats and

coercion for guidance.1 However, Russia did not attempt coercion. Instead, Russia unilaterally

occupied and annexed the territory, gambling that it could take Crimea without provoking war.

This alternative strategy – the fait accompli – receives far less scholarly attention. In the

literature’s understanding of statecraft on the brink of war, the fait accompli has lived in the

shadow of coercion. This longstanding prioritization of coercion emerges from a plausible

assumption that scholars typically leave implicit: states ordinarily make gains by coercion, while

the fait accompli is a comparative rarity. If so, Crimea was little more than an exception to

normal international conduct.

This note upends that assumption. It establishes that states far more often acquire territory

by fait accompli than by coercion. At issue is a fundamental question of statecraft in international

politics: How do states make gains? Short of prevailing in a war, how does a state acquire

something from an adversary that does not wish to surrender it? Territorial gains offer a domain

within which to address this question. Using new data on all ‘land grabs’ since 1918, this

1 (Fearon 1994a; Fearon 1997; Filson and Werner 2002; George and Simons 1994; Jervis 1989; Lebow

1981; Leventoglu and Tarar 2008; Martin 1994; Morrow 1999b; Powell 1999; Schelling 1966; Schultz

1998; Slantchev 2011; Snyder and Diesing 1977).

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research note documents a stark discrepancy. From 1918 to 2016, 112 land grabs seized territory

by fait accompli, with Crimea the most recent. In that same span, only 13 publicly-declared

coercive threats elicited cessions of territory. This fact has direct implications for strategy,

statecraft, and scenario planning. It raises questions about canonical theories of war that rely on

assumptions about coercive bargaining during crises (see Fearon 1995).

Although faits accomplis take many forms, territorial acquisitions offer the best single-

issue domain within which to examine how frequently each strategy makes gains, for two

reasons. First, territory has long ranked as perhaps the foremost issue over which states come

into conflict – and the issue most associated with the onset of war (Vasquez and Henehan 2001).

Second, the outcomes of conflicts—the extent to which each side “won” or “lost”—often prove

difficult to measure (see, for instance, Jones et al. 1996, 179). Change in the military control of

territory offers a comparatively clear basis for identifying gains and losses.

The possibility that states most often acquire territory by coercion is no straw man. Quite

the opposite, the rarity of territorial gains through coercion should come as a surprise. Consider

the influential case of the Munich Crisis in 1938. German threats coerced Czechoslovakia into

relinquishing the Sudetenland. Munich offers a plausible general model for statecraft, but not a

representative model. Since 1918, land grabs such as Russia’s seizure of Crimea remained the

norm; coerced cessions like the Sudetenland proved the exception. Moreover, most of the

coercion successes occurred immediately prior to the Second World War. From 1945 onward,

coercive threats have only resulted in territorial acquisition twice, as compared to 82 land grabs

in this period.

This research note proceeds as follows. The first section explains the fait accompli as a

concept, making that case that it deserves a seat at the table in the field’s understanding of

strategy and statecraft. With the notable exception of a recent study by Tarar (2016), which I

consider below, the fait accompli has received remarkably little scholarly attention until now.

The second section explores the significance of the fait accompli for widely-held theories of the

causes of war. The third details the creation of new data on land grabs from 1918 to 2016.

Existing studies of territorial conflict often remark upon the importance of land grabs, but until

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now the data to evaluate this phenomenon directly have not existed.2 The fourth establishes that

states far more often made territorial gains by fait accompli than by coercion in the 1918-2016

period. The study concludes with a discussion of the questions raised by this finding and points

to the need for a new body of research on faits accomplis.

The Fait Accompli

Suppose a criminal armed with a handgun encounters a wealthy man holding his wallet.

The criminal can acquire that wallet in three basic ways. First, the criminal can shoot the victim,

then take it. The strategy: brute force. Second, the criminal can brandish the gun, threaten to

shoot, and intimidate the man into surrendering his wallet. The strategy: coercion. Or, third, the

criminal can reach out and grab the wallet, calculating that the victim will not attack an armed

man to regain it. The strategy: fait accompli. States seeking to make gains select from the same

three fundamental options, yet the International Relations literature has focused overwhelmingly

on just two.

In his foundational study of strategy and statecraft, Schelling (1966, 1-34) established the

distinction between brute force and coercion. Through all-out invasion, regime change, or mass

killings, challengers can impose a desired outcome without the consent of the defender.

Alternatively, challengers can threaten to inflict harm if their demands go unfulfilled, making

gains by coercion when the defender meets those demands. Schelling’s distinction, although

crucially important, omits and perhaps obscures the fait accompli as a third fundamental way to

make gains.3 This stems from his focus on only the most aggressive forms of brute force.

Although the fait accompli is, like brute force, a unilateral imposition, it takes place on a far

smaller and sometimes nonviolent scale. The challenger aims to escape escalation rather than

2 (Carter 2010; Diehl and Goertz 2002; Fazal 2011; Hensel et al. 2008; Huth and Allee 2002; Huth et al.

2011; Mattes 2008; Prorok and Huth 2015; Tir and Vasquez 2012; Wiegand 2011; Zacher 2001).

3 Schelling does discuss faits accomplis in other contexts later in the book (cited above).

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prevail after it. Unlike brute force, a fait accompli does not violently disarm, disable, or destroy

the defender.4

A fait accompli imposes a limited unilateral gain at an adversary’s expense in an attempt

to get away with that gain when the adversary chooses to relent rather than escalate in

retaliation.5 Each fait accompli is a calculated risk. Whether it results in a successful gain or

escalation depends on whether the challenger has successfully gauged the level of loss the

defender will accept. Take too much and the defender will prefer war to tolerating the loss.

Sometimes this strategy succeeds, as with Iran’s 1971 occupation of Abu Musa and nearby

islands in the Persian Gulf. Other faits accomplis fail when they provoke a stronger response

than had been hoped. Argentina’s 1982 attempt to get away with seizing the Falkland Islands

backfired when it provoked a British counterattack.

The fait accompli is unsuitable for maximalist aims such as conquering an adversary

outright or changing a regime. A fait accompli aims to take a gain small enough that the

adversary will let it go rather than escalate.6 Military operations intended as the initial phase of a

brute force campaign with unlimited aims are not faits accomplis. Although most faits accomplis

– including many land grabs – are small in size, even small land grabs can have large

implications. For instance, the two deadliest armed clashes between nuclear powers each began

with a sudden deployment of troops to occupy a small region along a disputed border: the Sino-

4 From one perspective, the fait accompli closely resembles brute force. It makes gains by unilateral

imposition rather than by concession. From another perspective, however, the fait accompli closely

resembles coercion. After taking a gain, each fait accompli relies on a credible threat to deter the

adversary from retaking what was lost or punishing its seizure. Per Schelling (1966), brute force and

coercion are distinct alternatives, yet the fait accompli incorporates core elements of each. That one can

plausibly conceptualize the fait accompli as either brute force or coercion (or, somehow, both) supports

my claim that it is more useful to define it as a distinct strategy falling between the two.

5 For similar definitions, see (Schelling 1966, 44-45; Snyder and Diesing 1977, 227).

6 This creates a definitional oddity wherein a single action may be a fait accompli with respect to third

parties but not with respect to the defender. Iraq’s 1990 invasion and annexation of Kuwait was brute

force (unlimited) with respect to Kuwait but a fait accompli with respect to the United States.

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Soviet border conflict in 1969 (Damansky Island) and the Indo-Pakistani conflict in 1999

(Kargil).

Coercion and the fait accompli are two fundamentally different ways of acquiring

something from an adversary. Faits accomplis make gains unilaterally, imposing a change to the

status quo without the adversary’s consent. Coercive threats, in contrast, pressure the adversary

into consenting to a concession, however reluctantly.7 As the primary strategies for wresting

gains from recalcitrant adversaries short of taking them after winning a war, this study focuses

on these two alternatives.

More precisely, the fait accompli is an alternative to the specific type of coercion

available to challengers: compellence. Compellence is coercion demanding a revision to the

status quo; unlike deterrence, which employs threats to preserve the status quo.8 In his studies of

compellence, Sechser (2011; Sechser and Fuhrmann 2013) draws exactly this distinction

between coercive gains and gains by fait accompli, referring to them as “compellence” and

“compulsion,” respectively. Sechser addresses compulsion primarily for methodological reasons.

The problem: cases where the challenger attempted compellence, the defender rebuffed the

threat, and the challenger then took what it wanted by force. Without the separate outcome

category of compulsion, such cases wrongly register as successes for coercion.9 Although much

of the literature uses the term coercion to encompass both deterrence and compellence, this study

follows others who use the term more narrowly to mean compellence (for example, Pape 1996).

Another appropriate term is ultimatum bargaining.

Surprise is an important characteristic of many – but not all – faits accomplis.10 With

respect to land grabs, partial surprise is typical. Explicit ultimatums demanding territory and

7 I include here both coercion by punishment and coercion by denial (Pape 1996).

8 Schelling (1966, 35-91) emphasized the greater difficulty of compellence in his original formulation of

the deterrence-compellence dichotomy.

9 Also see Pape (1997) on this problem and economic sanctions.

10 Including surprise within the definition of fait accompli would leave no clear term for faits accomplis

that eschew surprise. Those often occur immediately after the failure of coercive threats.

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setting deadlines are rare, so some degree of surprise is normal. However, states rarely seize

territory without first declaring a public claim to it, so total surprise is unusual.11

Faits accomplis have received surprisingly little attention in the International Relations

literature. Only one peer-reviewed article in International Relations addresses the fait accompli as its

primary subject. Tarar (2016) uses formal modeling to introduce the fait accompli into established

bargaining theories of war. Tarar offers two explanations for the occurrence of faits accomplis. First, the

informational explanation holds that defenders’ uncertainty about the feasibility (costliness) of a fait

accompli leads to an unwillingness to offer sufficient concessions.12 Challengers then resort to a fait

accompli. Second, the commitment-problems explanation posits a first-strike advantage. Challengers

impose faits accomplis suddenly and by surprise in order to avoid having the defender make military

preparations that would increase the costs of a future fait accompli.

Prior to Tarar’s article, the most significant discussion of the fait accompli appeared amid

studies of the causes of war. These scholars regard the fait accompli is a risky crisis tactic, one that

exacerbates the likelihood of war (Snyder and Diesing 1977, 227; Van Evera 1998, 10). Van Evera, for

instance, characterizes the fait accompli as a “halfway step to war.” In their study of deterrence, George

and Smoke (1974, 536-40) identify faits accomplis as an intermediate form of deterrence failure. From

that perspective, faits accomplis are worse for the deterrer than maintaining the status quo but better

than an unlimited attack. Mearsheimer (1983, 53-58) encompasses faits accomplis within the military

strategy of “limited aims.” Unlike the alternative strategies of blitzkrieg and attrition, a limited aims

attack consists of a sudden operation to seize a border region while engaging only a small fraction of the

enemy’s forces. Mearsheimer regards this strategy with skepticism, arguing that even a limited aims

attack will make a “lengthy war of attrition … very likely because the defender’s key decision makers will

undoubtedly be under great pressure to recapture lost territory.” However, most land grabs do not start

wars. Fewer still provoke high-intensity wars of attrition. Military strategy does not offer the best lens

11 For a finer-grained discussion of types and degrees of surprise, see Betts (1982); Wohlstetter (1962).

12 Unlike Tarar, my definition does not require a fait accompli to be intrinsically costly. I observe that

many land grabs seize unoccupied territory at negligible intrinsic cost, with the costs instead depending

on the responses of victims and third parties.

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for understanding land grabs. The fait accompli is first and foremost a political strategy, one that aspires

not to require a military strategy.

Although providing an important starting point for thinking about faits accomplis, the literature

lacks a clear sense of how prevalent they are in international politics. One might read this literature in

full and come away with the impression that the fait accompli is a niche phenomenon seen in a handful

of cases, not something of importance for general theories of International Relations.

The Significance of the Fait Accompli for the Bargaining Model of War

If, as this note will show, states far more often make territorial gains by fait accompli than by

coercion, what does it mean for existing theories of International Relations? This section examines the

implications for the foremost research question in the field: the causes of war. In particular, the

surprising rarity of coerced territorial gains raises questions about the bargaining model of war (Fearon

1995). Assumptions about coercive bargaining in crises anchor this widely-held rationalist theory of war.

Consequently, understanding the true process of strategic interaction in crises is a first-order issue for

International Relations theory. I begin by refuting a prima facie plausible line of reasoning that regards

the rarity of coerced territorial cessions as an outright falsification of the bargaining model.

Nonetheless, I then explain why the predominance of gains by fait accompli may lead to important

changes to theories built around the bargaining model.

At first glance, the greater prevalence of faits accomplis relative to coerced concessions seems

to destabilize established bargaining theories of war. According to Reiter (2003, 31), “The bargaining

model proposes that exercising brute force to accomplish limited aims is generally misguided.” Since

Fearon’s seminal article, the field has increasingly come to conceive of war as the result of a failure to

reach a war-averting coercive bargain. Peace endures when threats of war lead one side to give up

enough so that the other no longer prefers a costly war to a peaceful bargain (Fearon 1995; Wagner

2000). Therefore, the rarity of coerced bargains in the issue area most associated with the onset of war

– territory – seems to pose a severe problem. How can coercive bargaining preserve the peace if there

are so few coerced bargains? Indeed, territory commonly provides the explicit if stylized stakes for these

models (for example, Fearon 1995; Filson and Werner 2002, 825; Powell 2004; Powell 2006).

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However, the rarity of coerced cessions does not in itself falsify the bargaining model.

Each fait accompli can function as a tacit bargain. The required war-avoiding concession takes

the form of a decision not to escalate in response to a fait accompli.13 Although not an

invalidation of the framework, this changes the nature of the envisioned bargaining process. That

process no longer requires negotiation, coercive threats, or verbal bargaining of any kind. This

may falsify narrower interpretations of the bargaining model. Stripped of these elements,

however, the underlying premise remains intact. The two sides avoid war when both find

agreeing to the new status quo preferable to war.14

The implications extend further. The relative prevalence of gains by fait accompli raises

serious questions about the role of signaling in crisis bargaining. Because the bargaining model

literature regards uncertainty as perhaps the foremost cause of bargaining failure and war, it

places a primary emphasis on crisis signaling. These signals of resolve include military

deployments intended as shows of force and public statements of commitment that put audience

costs on the line (Fearon 1997; Slantchev 2011; Trager and Vavreck 2011; but see Slantchev

2010; Snyder and Borghard 2011). This is not an abstract concern. Signaling is the concept most

often applied to interpret state behavior during crises. According to Fearon (1994b), “States

resort to the risky and provocative actions that characterize crises (i.e., mobilization and

deployment of troops and public warnings or threats about the use of force) because less-public

diplomacy may not allow them to credibly reveal their own preferences.”

However, signals of resolve do not seem to contribute to intimidating states into granting

territorial concessions with any regularity. States practicing coercion must convey their resolve

effectively to receive a concession. In contrast, states can take a gain by fait accompli without

preparatory signaling.

13 Intriguingly, and unlike most of the subsequent literature, Fearon (1995, 394, 405) models war-

avoiding bargains using the term “fait accompli” (exactly twice). However, he uses the term to refer to

making take-it-or-leave-it offers, which encompass both faits accomplis (by my definition) and coercive

ultimatums. Therefore, he does not fully explore the distinction between coercion and the fait accompli.

14 Tarar (2016) formally integrates faits accomplis into the rationalist framework. Fey and Ramsay (2010)

show that the framework is not especially dependent on assumptions about the exact bargaining protocol.

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The full connection between signaling and the prevalence of faits accomplis is perhaps

surprising. It emerges only through a consideration of the likely reasons why territorial gains by

fait accompli are so much more common than gains by coercion. To my knowledge, the

following four are the only unitary rationalist explanations for the greater prevalence of land

grabs relative to coerced territorial cessions.15 That is, these explanations accord with the

simplifying assumption that states are singular actors that rationally pursue their interests (Fearon

1995). If validated, any or all of the four would undercut the significance of traditional crisis

signals of resolve, each in its own way. I illustrate each with hypothetical (illustrative-only)

explanations of Russia’s fait accompli in Crimea.16

The first explanation is simply that states are unable to find signals costly enough (or

otherwise credible enough) to convince adversaries of their resolve. If so, challengers can make

gains by fait accompli, by brute force, or not at all. To illustrate using the case of Crimea,

perhaps Russia doubted that issuing and ultimatum and mobilizing forces near Crimea would

convince Ukraine that Russia would truly seize it by force. If signaling is this difficult, whether

for rational or psychological reasons (Jervis et al. 1989), its role in crises is likely overstated.

A second – and very different – explanation is the value of surprise. If the element of

surprise provides an important tactical advantage for faits accomplis, challengers may forgo the

signals and explicit threats necessary to coerce concessions (Tarar 2016). This would negate their

role. Eschewing signals and threats prevents the defender from consolidating its position with

reinforcements or fortifications (Carter 2010). For example, Russia’s sudden and secretive

15 However, two other possible explanations for this discrepancy from outside the unitary rationalist

framework might raise fewer questions about importance of signaling resolve. Sensitive to their domestic

political audience, leaders may find it less humiliating to lose territory to unilateral adversary action than

to actively participate in a capitulation. Alternatively, perhaps states can better deny the legitimacy of a

territorial loss if it occurs by fait accompli than if they consent to it.

16 Unfortunately, insufficient information concerning Moscow’s strategic thinking has come to light to

determine which, if any, of these explanations is correct. I leave the empirical question of why this

disparity exists to future research. I suspect that the answer is a combination of these explanations.

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invasion of Crimea using soldiers without identifying insignia gave Ukraine little time to prepare

or deploy troops whose loyalty was not in question. Russia may have chosen to forgo coercion

for that reason.

Third, the decision to attempt coercion rather than impose a fait accompli may screen out

the most resolute challengers, crippling the credibility of subsequent coercive threats.17 If the

threat is sincere, why did the challenger not simply take the territory at the outset? The absence

of a fait accompli may function as an implicit signal of weakness that supersedes ensuing signals

of resolve.18 In Crimea, suppose that Russia believed Ukraine would interpret the decision to

demand Crimea rather than seize it as a sign of low resolve. If so, Russia had no reason to make

a coercive threat that it expected would fail.

Finally, suppose that losing territory to a land grab is not significantly costlier than losing

it to a coercive threat as a concession. If so, defenders may opt to make challengers prove that

they are in fact willing to risk war to take the territory. By rejecting the challenger’s threat, the

defender preserves the possibility of retaining the territory if the challenger is bluffing.

Defenders may prefer a slim chance of keeping the territory if the challenger is bluffing to the

certainty of losing it by capitulating. In the Crimean context, this explanation posits that Ukraine

would have preferred the possibility of retaining Crimea by rejecting Russian demands to the

certainty of losing Crimea after agreeing to cede it. Anticipating this, Russia issued no threats

and chose instead to impose a fait accompli.

In sum, it is surprisingly difficult to reconcile the rarity of territorial gains by coercion

with the prevailing conceptualization of state behavior during crises: signals of resolve designed

to endow coercive threats with credibility. This matters because assumptions about the nature of

strategic interactions on the brink of war lay the foundations for larger theories of international

17 My thanks to James Fearon for suggesting this explanation.

18 This screening may offer an alternative explanation for Sechser’s (2010) finding that strong states

struggle to coerce weak states. Strong states that forgo the opportunity for an initial fait accompli despite

their clear power advantage may signal a particularly low level of resolve, undermining subsequent

compellent threats.

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politics. For instance, popular theories explaining both the democratic peace and the peace-

promoting effect of bilateral trade rely on crucial assumptions about the importance of signals of

resolve (Schultz 1998; Morrow 1999a; Gartzke et al. 2001). A reduced role for signaling during

crises may call into question bedrock theories of International Relations. Replacing coercive

threats with faits accomplis has implications that extend far beyond the subjects of crisis

statecraft and territorial conflict.

Data and Measurement

In territorial conflicts, the fait accompli takes the form of the land grab. Coercion makes

territorial gains in the form of cessions under threat. This section summarizes the definitions and

measurement of each. It details the creation of new data on land grabs.

A land grab is a military deployment that seizes a disputed piece of territory with the

intention to assume lasting control. Each state can commit a maximum of one land grab in one

militarized dispute or crisis. I do not distinguish, for instance, between seizing one island and

seizing a group of islands if these seizures occur within the same militarized dispute. This

definition of land grab excludes most cross-border military operations because they lack an

intention to assume control of additional territory (that is, to change the border).19 Incursions

other than land grabs include interventions in civil wars, raids on rebel bases, peacekeeping

missions, and navigational errors by military patrols.

Land grabs are a form of behavior, not an outcome. To qualify as a land grab, the

challenger must occupy disputed territory that it did not previously hold. There is no minimum

time for which the challenger must retain the territory. The eventual outcome – whether the

challenger keeps lasting control of the territory – does not factor into the definition. Nonetheless,

19 It was not possible to apply the definition of land grabs during state formation processes. The salient

criterion is the existence of a prior interstate border (including de facto borders). Without one, it proved

infeasible to identify land grabs changing it. The omitted cases cluster in a few transitional periods:

former Ottoman Empire 1910s, Eastern Europe 1910s, Israel-Palestine 1940s, India-Pakistan 1940s, and

Balkans 1990s. These cases also blur the line between civil and interstate conflict.

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I discuss the longer-term fates of land grabs in the next section. Many land grabs seize territory

occupied by the armed forces of another state. Others seize unoccupied territories claimed by

both sides. In part for this reason, some land grabs use violence from the start. Others acquire

territory without casualties.

All faits accomplis seizing territories are land grabs. However, a small number of land

grabs likely were not faits accomplis. The definition of fait accompli requires an attempt to get

away with a gain when the adversary chooses to relent rather than escalate in retaliation. Due to

the difficulty of observing this intent, the definition of land grab does not include this

requirement. In a few cases, it appears that the challenger embarked on the land grab expecting

that war would ensue. The 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars illustrate this point.20 They contrast

with, for example, Argentina’s ambition to get away with seizing the Falkland Islands.

To identify land grabs between 1918 and 2016, I made use of several event and territorial

conflict datasets: the Interstate Crisis Behavior, Militarized Interstate Disputes, Correlates of

War, and Territorial Change datasets, and a variety of other sources.21 I then used secondary

sources to confirm the existence of a land grab and gather additional information about it. It

proved infeasible to identify cases in which states occupied small territories without any public

controversy or complaint. Consequently, land grabs occur within an accompanying dispute,

crisis, or war.

Why new data? The Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) and Territorial Change datasets

contain variables that seem similar, but neither can generate a similar list of land grabs.22 The

20 Mearsheimer’s (1983) limited aims strategy applies better to these cases than to land grabs generally.

21 (Brecher and Wilkenfeld 1997; Diehl and Goertz 2002; Jones et al. 1996; Sarkees et al. 2010; Tir et al.

1998). I would like to thank Ken Schultz for providing case narratives on territorial MIDs. I also made

more limited use of the ICOW Territorial Claims and Territorial Dispute datasets (Hensel et al. 2008;

Huth and Allee 2002; Huth 1996).

22 Although the ICOW dataset includes “military conquest/occupation” as a mode of resolution of

territorial claims, this category contains few land grabs (Hensel et al. 2008). Land grabs rarely result in

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MID dataset includes the “highest action” (in terms of escalation) taken by each actor during a

dispute. Although the 14th level of this variable is “occupation of territory,” cases only enter this

category when no higher escalation occurs. Any case that escalates to, for instance, “attack”

(level 17), “clash” (level 18) or war (levels 20 and 21) does not qualify as an occupation of

territory. This leaves out many land grabs.23 Moreover, most occupations of territory are not land

grabs, but rather cross-border incursions for other purposes. Similarly, the Territorial Change

dataset includes land grabs in three of its seven categories: “conquest,” “annexation,” and (more

rarely) “cession.” Each category contains many events other than land grabs, including coerced

cessions and legal settlements.24

To assess how often states gain territory by coercion, I utilize Sechser’s (2011) definition:

“an explicit demand by one state (the challenger) that another state (the target) alter the status

quo in some material way, backed by a threat of military force if the target does not comply.”

This definition includes verbal threats to take territory in a land grab. Sechser used this definition

to create the Militarized Compellent Threats (MCT) dataset. This dataset is the principal source

of the list of coerced cessions in the next section. Despite using the same definitions of coercion

and success, I identify fewer instances of successful territorial coercion than Sechser. The

discrepancy arises mainly because I define territorial issues more narrowly, requiring an attempt

to modify land borders. Sechser treats a broader range of issues as territorial in nature, including

the use of roads, control of canals, and fishing rights in disputed waters. Several instances of

successful territorial coercion in the MCT dataset involve stakes smaller than control over land.

the immediate termination of territorial claims. Consequently, brute force conquests of entire states

account for many of these claims resolutions.

23 Zacher (2001) provides a list of “interstate territorial aggressions,” but it leaves out many land grabs

because it selects on violence.

24 Both codebooks and datasets are available from the Correlates of War webpage. Also see Diehl and

Goertz (2002, 53-54).

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Finally, I exclude from the following analysis all cases like Iraq’s 1990 invasion of

Kuwait where one state sought control over the full territory of another.25 Neither coercion nor

the fait accompli suits this unlimited objective. By definition, faits accomplis seize something of

limited value in an attempt to get away with the gain without provoking war. Attempting to

conquer an entire state implies a brute force strategy and leaves the adversary with no choice but

to fight a war or lose everything.26 Similarly, coercion relies on asking for little enough that the

other side prefers capitulation to resistance. The next section presents data on these alternative

strategies for making limited territorial gains.

How States Wrest Territory from Their Adversaries

The data reveal that states far more often acquire territory by fait accompli than by

coercion. When Argentina took the Falkland Islands from Britain in 1981, it did so in a surprise

fait accompli. When Britain resolved to regain the islands, it demanded their return. Argentina

refused. British forces then retook the islands in an invasion of its own while carefully avoiding

attacks on Argentina itself, even on Argentinean naval vessels in port. When India confronted

Portugal with demands for the enclave of Goa – demands backed by an overwhelming advantage

in military power in the region – the Portuguese government refused. Portugal held its ground

and ordered its forces to fight to the end. Giving up on threats, India occupied by force Goa in

1961 (Goncalves 2013). These examples fit the broader pattern. Figure 1 compares the history of

territorial acquisitions by coercion to acquisitions by fait accompli from 1918 to 2016.

25 I exclude cases in which a coalition occupies the full territory of a state but one or more members of the

coalition receive only a smaller piece (for example, Poland 1939).

26 I found that challengers either try to get away with a limited gain – seeking to acquire only small pieces

of a defender’s territory – or accept that the defender will resist fully and aim for the full territory.

Attempts to acquire, for instance, half of another state’s territory are exceedingly rare. If the stakes are

high enough that the defender will resist fully, there is little reason to limit war aims. This supports my

conception of land grabs as faits accomplis and conquests of entire states as brute force.

16

Figure 1: How States Wrest Territory from Their Adversaries, 1918-2016

States make territorial gains by coercion with surprising rarity. Not once in the last fifty

years has a publicly-declared threat coerced a state into ceding territory without the coercer

deploying its military to seize the territory first. Only two coerced territorial cessions took place

after 1945.27 In the most recent case, Indonesia pressured the Netherlands into relinquishing

West Irian (West Papua) in 1963. In 1952, Greece mobilized forces and bombarded Bulgarian

troops who had just occupied Gamma Island, a small disputed island in the Evros River. The

small Bulgarian force then complied with the Greek ultimatum to withdraw (Chicago Daily

Tribune 1952). In the full period, 1918-2016, the number of coerced territorial cessions grows to

thirteen.28 Table 1 lists these coerced cessions.

In contrast, states have unilaterally deployed military forces to seize territory 112 times

since 1918. Eighty-two of these occurred since 1945, which offers a particularly stark contrast to

the two coerced cessions during that period. Table 2 lists these land grabs. The table contains 84

distinct cases. The asterisks mark the 28 that provoked an immediate retaliatory land grab.29

These cases each contain two land grabs. All but a few of the retaliatory land grabs retook the

seized territory.

27 Decolonization conflicts between imperial powers and groups representing occupied populations fall

outside the scope of this study because they are not conflicts between two existing states. Many of these

groups seem to have succeeded at coercing out the colonizing power. This raises questions of whether and

why coercion was more successful in these conflicts.

28 Two further case are open to interpretation: the Spanish decision to cede Western Sahara in 1975 and

the Soviet withdrawal from portions of Iran in 1946. I code the former as a land grab due to the Green

March and the latter as non-coercive.

29 A retaliatory land grab must meet two criteria: 1) the victim of a land grab responds with a limited

operation to promptly retake a finite territory. 2) That operation must occur before the conflict has crossed

the threshold to qualify as a war. If war is already underway (e.g., Israel’s seizure of the West Bank and

Golan Heights), that retaliation is not a land grab. Nor do larger retaliatory operations aimed at regime

change or outright conquest (for example, Iran’s invasion of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War) qualify.

17

Table 1: Coerced Territorial Cessions, 1918-2016

Year Coercer Target Territory

1922 Turkey Britain Constantinople; Eastern Thrace

1935 Japan China Hebei; Chahar

1937 Turkey France Hatay (Alexandretta)

1937 Japan Soviet Union Amur River Islands

1938 Germany Czechoslovakia Sudetenland

1938 Hungary Czechoslovakia Southern Slovakia

1938 Poland Czechoslovakia Teschen

1939 Germany Lithuania Memel

1940 Soviet Union Romania Bessarabia; Northern Bukovina

1940 Bulgaria Romania Southern Dobruja

1940 Hungary Romania Northern Transylvania

1952 Greece Bulgaria Gamma Island

1963 Indonesia Netherlands West Irian (West Papua)

18

Table 2: Land Grabs, 1918-2016

Year Land Grab Territory War

BY AGAINST

1919 Romania Russia Bessarabia

1919 Finland Russia* East Karelia (p)

1921 Costa Rica Panama* Coto

1921 Yugoslavia Albania Northern Albania

1922 Turkey Britain Chanak

1923 Italy Greece Corfu

1925 Russia Afghanistan Urta-Tugai

1927 Norway Britain Bouvet Island

1928 Paraguay Bolivia* Chaco (p)

1931 Japan China Manchuria X

1932 Bolivia Paraguay* Chaco (p) X

1932 Peru Colombia* Leticia

1933 North Yemen Saudi Arabia* Najran (Asir) X

1937 Russia Japan Amur River Islands

1938 Russia Japan Changkufeng X

1939 Japan Russia* Nomonhan X

1939 Russia Finland Karelia (p); Salla (p); Rybachi; Gulf Islands X

1940 Thailand France Indochina (p) X

1941 Japan Britain Malaysia; Burma; Hong Kong X

1941 Japan Netherlands Dutch East Indies X

1941 Japan United States Philippines; Guam; Wake Island X

1941 Peru Ecuador* Marañón

1952 Bulgaria Greece Gamma Island

1952 Saudi Arabia Britain* Buraimi

1954 Thailand Cambodia Preah Vihear

1954 South Korea Japan Dokdo (Takeshima) Islands

1954 India Portugal Dadra; Nagar Haveli

1956 Israel Egypt Sinai; Gaza X

1957 Nicaragua Honduras* Mocoron

1957 Morocco Spain Ifni (p)

1958 Egypt Sudan Hala’ib Triangle

1959 India China* Longju; Kongka Pass

1961 India Portugal Goa

1962 India China* Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh borders (p) X

1963 Morocco Algeria Colomb-Bechar; Tindouf

1965 Pakistan India* Rann of Kutch (p)

1965 Pakistan India Akhnur X

1966 Venezuela Guyana Ankoko Island

1967 Israel Egypt Sinai; Gaza X

1969 Argentina Uruguay Timoteo Dominguez (Punta Bauza)

1969 El Salvador Honduras Gulf of Fonseca islands; six border pockets X

* The initial land grab provoked an immediate retaliatory land grab by this state

(p) The land grab seized only part of the named territory

19

Table 2: Land Grabs, 1918-2016 (continued)

Year Land Grab Territory War

BY AGAINST

1969 China Russia* Damansky (Zhenbao) Island

1969 Iraq Kuwait Strip along border near Umm Qasr

1969 South Yemen Saudi Arabia* Al-Wadiah

1971 Iran UAE Abu Musa; G. and L. Tunbs

1971 Philippines China Spratly Islands (p)

1972 North Yemen South Yemen Kamaran

1973 Egypt Israel Sinai (p) X

1973 Syria Israel Golan Heights (p) X

1974 China South Vietnam* Paracel Islands

1974 Turkey Cyprus Northern Cyprus X

1975 Cambodia Vietnam* Phu Quoc; Tho Chu; Poulo Wai

1975 Morocco Spain Western Sahara

1977 Somalia Ethiopia* Ogaden X

1977 Cambodia Vietnam Tay Ninh; Ha Tien; adjacent areas X

1978 Uganda Tanzania Kagera Salient X

1980 Iraq Iran Khuzestan X

1981 Ecuador Peru* Cordillera del Condor (p)

1982 Argentina Britain* Falkland (Malvinas) Islands X

1983 Nigeria Chad* Islands in Lake Chad

1983 Malaysia Vietnam Spratly Islands (p)

1984 India Pakistan Siachen

1984 Laos Thailand Three-Village Border Region

1984 India China Thag La

1985 Mali Burkina Faso Agacher Strip

1986 China India Thag La

1986 Qatar Bahrain Fasht al-Dibal

1987 Thailand Laos* Three-Village Border Region

1987 Nigeria Cameroon Islands in Lake Chad

1988 China Vietnam* Spratly Islands (p)

1991 Botswana Namibia Kasikili/Sududo Island

1991 Armenia Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh; adjacent regions X

1993 Nigeria Cameroon Diamant; Jabane; Bakassi

1994 China Philippines Spratly Islands (p)

1994 Egypt Sudan Hala’ib Triangle

1995 Ecuador Peru* Cenepa (p) X

1995 Eritrea Yemen Hanish Islands

1996 Greece Turkey* Imia (Kardak); Akrogialia

1998 Eritrea Ethiopia* Badme X

1999 Pakistan India* Kargil X

2002 Morocco Spain* Parsley (Perejil) Island

2008 Djibouti Eritrea Ras Doumeira (p)

2010 Nicaragua Costa Rica Calero Island (p)

2014 Russia Ukraine Crimea

* The initial land grab provoked an immediate retaliatory land grab by this state

(p) The land grab seized only part of the named territory

20

Whereas land grabs occurred fairly steadily throughout the 1918-2016 period, nine of the

thirteen coerced cessions cluster. Coercion appears to have been unusually effective in the

international climate that existed between 1937 and 1940, particularly in Eastern Europe. With

the prospects of major war and outright conquest looming, small states made concessions that

they might not have granted in other periods. Czechoslovakia and Romania were the primary

victims, together accounting for half of the cessions.

The steady rate of land grabs since 1918 amends important findings by Zacher (2001),

Fazal (2011), and Atzili (2012) that territorial conquest declined markedly over the course of the

twentieth century. Each author attributes that reduction to a strengthening norm of territorial

integrity. As Fazal underscores, attempts to conquer and absorb states in their entirety declined

precipitously after 1945. However, as I explore elsewhere, land grabs seizing smaller pieces of

territory have largely persisted.30 Conquest no longer goes hand in hand with warfare as part of a

brute force strategy. Land grabs attempting to take smaller territories without provoking war as

part of a fait accompli strategy are now the predominant form of territorial conquest. Conquest

has not gone away, but rather has become smaller, more targeted, and less violent (Altman

2016).

There are a variety of ways to parse the exact ratio of land grabs to coerced cessions.

Some reduce the disparity; others strengthen it. For instance, excluding acquisitions of entire

states eliminates twenty-one conquests by (brute) force, but only four cessions.31 Conversely,

including retaliatory land grabs inflates the number of land grabs. Nonetheless, this inclusion is

appropriate. When a challenger takes a piece of a territory, the defender can seek to regain that

territory by fait accompli or by coercion. Indeed, many victims of land grabs immediately

demand withdrawal and back those demands with threats of force. These threats failed, except in

the cases of Gamma Island (discussed above) and the Amur River Islands in 1937. Japanese

threats succeeded at undoing that Soviet land grab. The absence of additional cases of coercion

reversing land grabs offers relevant evidence that speaks to the rarity of coercive gains.

30 Fazal (2011, 53) notes this possibility.

31 These capitulations – Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – also cluster around the onset of

the Second World War.

21

Moreover, one might exclude retaliatory land grabs on the grounds that they are not fully

independent observations. However, this same concern would justify removing a minimum of

four of the remaining eleven coerced cessions. The disparity would remain.

The 112 to 13 figure rests on defining land grabs and coerced cessions as forms of

territorial acquisition, that is, as events that occur at single moments in time irrespective of what

follows. It is, nonetheless, reasonable to ask what happens next. Of particular concern, this

comparison excludes failed coercive threats but includes land grabs that succeeded at taking

territory only to fail to retain control for long.

Wars and retaliatory land grabs provide the two leading reasons for the failure of land

grabs to secure lasting gains. Table 2 listed both, with the final column utilizing Correlates of

War data to identify interstate wars. Of the 112 land grabs, retaliatory land grabs account for 28

(25%). Setting aside these retaliatory land grabs, 27 (of 84) initial land grabs erupted into wars

that met the standard 1,000 battle death criterion (32%).32 Some of these wars reversed land

grabs.

32 This rate of war aligns with the conceptualization of the fait accompli as a calculated risk. Because it is

difficult to accurately perceive how much loss the adversary will tolerate, challengers sometimes

overreach and provoke a strong response.

22

Table 3: The Durability of Territorial Gains, 1918-2016

Coerced Cessions Land Grabs

Acquisition (even if short-lived) 13 112

Held at End of Militarized Dispute 13 59

Held after 10 Years 7 56*

Held Uninterrupted for 10 Years 5 47*

* Cases after 2006 omitted

23

In contrast, none of the coerced cessions led immediately to war or retaliatory land grabs.

This accords with established theories. The success of coercion equates to the achievement of a

war-avoiding bargain. However, most coerced cessions occurred during the turmoil that

culminated in the Second World War. That war soon reversed most of those cessions.

Table 3 show that both strategies often failed to secure lasting gains. Land grabs and

coerced cessions alike produce gains that remain after ten years only about half of the time. That

success rate drops further for each when including only cases of uninterrupted control of the

territory for ten years. This provides a better barometer of whether the land grab or coercive

threat created the gain, rather than merely happening to precede it. The ten-year comparisons

warrant some caution. Because so many cessions occurred during the pre-WWII cluster, the war

may have deflated the long-term success rate of coercion.

The two strategies clearly differ in one respect: land grabs failed more quickly. By the

end of the militarized dispute in which the land grab occurred, including any resultant crisis or

war, defenders reversed half of the land grabs. Although a large reduction, note that even this

revised ratio is approximately 1 to 4.5 in favor of the fait accompli. This figure would still

represent a striking departure from conventional assumptions that coercion is of central

importance for international politics while the fait accompli merits only occasional attention.

Territory changes hands in more ways than just coercion and the fait accompli. The two

are the primary adversarial means by which states acquire territory at each other’s expense short

of war. They are the two ways to make gains in the thick of crises. Nonetheless, territory also

changes hands at the ends of wars and – quite frequently – through negotiated agreements. Could

these negotiated agreements be coercion?

To address this question, I examined all territorial cessions since 1918 irrespective of

whether the cases appear as conflicts (compellent threats, crises, disputes, or wars) in the

associated datasets.33 I observed that negotiated agreements to cede territory tend to occur years

33 On the cessions data, see Diehl and Goertz (2002).

24

after a crisis or dispute – if any crisis or militarized dispute occurred at all – and without an

explicit compellent threat. Even if coercion occurred, it is qualitatively distinct from the sort of

crisis bargaining in, for instance, the Munich Crisis. Moreover, the winning side very often

prevailed due to a favorable ruling by an international legal institution or arbitrator after a

prolonged process of deliberation, which does not suggest coercion. The three strong candidates

for latent coercion are the Spanish cession of Ifni to Morocco, the Israeli return of the Sinai to

Egypt, and the British relinquishment of Hong Kong to China. Beyond those three, it becomes

difficult to find cases where a convincing qualitative argument exists for latent coercion

determining the outcome.

There are many ways to compare coercion to faits accomplis. Some produce a ratio less

uneven than 112 to 13, but the bottom line remains unchanged. Although the International

Relations literature devotes far more attention to coercion, the fait accompli better accords with

the modern history of territorial gains.

Questions Raised

The fait accompli deserves to emerge from the shadow of coercion and take on a major

role in thinking about statecraft on the brink of war. In providing evidence to support that

conclusion, this research note aims to provide an impetus to future research about the fait

accompli. To aid in that endeavor, I conclude with a set of unanswered questions.

First, what does it mean for bargaining theories of war that, at least with respect to

territory, explicit coercive bargains are so rare, while faits accomplis are more prevalent? How

might these theories adapt to accommodate a central role for faits accomplis? A previous section

considered this question in more detail. It explains why the answer depends on a different

question: why are coerced cessions rare in comparison to land grabs? Given the implications of

the likely answers, should compellent threats and signals of resolve retain their current prides of

place in the literature’s understanding of statecraft on the brink of war?

25

This study also underscores the need for a body of research directly studying faits

accomplis. What does a theory of faits accomplis look like? Under what conditions are faits

accomplis more likely to occur? Why, for instance, did Russia invade and annex Crimea in 2014

but pursue a less overt form of intervention in the Donbas region of Ukraine later that year?

Reframed, the question becomes: when and how do states deter faits accomplis?

Third, under what conditions are faits accomplis likely to lead to war? The literature

regards the fait accompli as a risky crisis tactic that makes war more likely. Yet, only a minority

of land grabs lead to war. When can states successfully “get away” with faits accomplis? Senese

and Vasquez (2008, 9-14) identify territorial disputes as a crucial initial “step to war.” Could the

land grab belong as another? Some initiators in wars over territory eschew the fait accompli and

proceed directly to brute force. Nonetheless, in many other cases like the Falklands a

miscalculated fait accompli served as an essential penultimate stage in the escalation of a

territorial dispute to war.

Fourth, when and how do challengers profit from their faits accomplis? When and how

can defenders reverse them? Can they do so without fighting and winning a war? The frequency

of retaliatory land grabs hints at a complex strategic interaction as states respond to faits

accomplis.

Fifth, are faits accomplis as prevalent with respect to disputes not involving territory?

More likely, it varies by issue type. Occupying and holding territory involve fundamental

functions of militaries, so military force may fit territorial disputes better than, for instance,

economic disputes (Huth 2000, 101). For some issue areas, states cannot choose the fait

accompli as a policy option. States that wish for diplomatic recognition from an adversary

inherently cannot impose that recognition by fait accompli. The same holds for states seeking to

influence an adversary to cease supporting rebels. By their nature, these concessions must be

given, not taken. In other issue areas, however, faits accomplis occur more frequently. Examples

include, on the one hand, building the next stage in a nuclear program in defiance of external

pressure and, on the other hand, providing weapons to rebel groups. States do not demand

consent for these activities. They simply conduct them. The issue of rebel support clarifies the

26

distinction. States can easily provide support to a rebel group by fait accompli, but will find it

extremely difficult to prevent support for rebels by fait accompli. The latter requires coercion.

This variation suggests another question: do challengers prevail more frequently in issue areas

for which the fait accompli readily avails itself as a policy option?

Finally, the prevalence of gains by fait accompli entails practical implications for

strategy, statecraft, and scenario planning. Consider the longstanding tensions over the Spratly

Islands in the South China Sea. Is China more likely to wrest control of islands now occupied by

Vietnam or the Philippines by suddenly seizing them in a fait accompli? Or, alternatively, by

issuing a coercive threat that cows one of its neighbors into agreeing to relinquish islands?34 In

theory, China might pursue either approach. But only the former accords with how states have

made territorial gains in recent decades. Similarly, Japanese efforts to prepare for a conflict with

China over the disputed Senkaku Islands should focus on the scenario in which a phone rings one

day with news that Chinese marines have occupied the islands. Even if China does attempt

coercion, Japan can choose to disregard any verbal demand. The scenario of a potential Chinese

land grab would then return to center stage. In large measure, avoiding a severe crisis or war in

maritime East Asia boils down to the unique challenge of deterring a fait accompli in the form of

an island grab.

For scholars, theoretical models of crises and the onset of war can better represent reality

by explicitly integrating faits accomplis. For statesmen contemplating potential crises, it is vital

to identify and prepare for potential adversary faits accomplis, both to deter them and to respond

effectively if deterrence fails. When the issue is disputed territory, challengers have not struggled

to identify the land grab as a strategic option. Nonetheless, the current foreign policy discourse

has yet to recognize the land grab as one of the most probable and consequential threats facing

the world today. It is time for the fait accompli to receive the attention it deserves as one of the

principal tools of statecraft in international politics, on par with coercion.

Supplemental Information

34 These are the first two scenarios for Biddle and Oelrich (2016, 15-16).

27

Data available from www.danielwaltman.com/research and the International Studies Quarterly

data archive.

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